Two days later, Varys sighed as he left the feast hall after dinner. Danaerys was still alive and well, and showed no signs of straying from her professed course of burning the city to obedient ash. He'd have to find a different poison, or increase the dosage, and quickly, while they were still on the island and Jon unable to escape being crowned.
He noted, with some distaste, that the Wolf's sorcerer was sitting next to the stairs leading to his bedchamber, his raven-topped staff across his knees.
"What are you doing here? Go on, get out!"
The sorcerer looked up and grinned, his cheek scars puckering and multiplying, before proffering a strong-smelling jug.
"Mjöðr, geldingr?"
Varys did not deign to reply, making his way up the stairs. A vague memory that the Wolf considered his acolyte a poisoner came to his shrewd mind, but he dismissed the idea. The man would immediately denounce him as the employer, assuming Varys could even get him to understand what was wanted of him.
Once in his room, he quickly closed the door and sat at his desk, taking quill and parchment and scratching out the same message several times. With the first batch done, he went to the raven cages, clipped a scrap of parchment to their legs, and sent several birds away. Come what may, by morning the news of Aegon Targaryen's true lineage would be known to all Westeros.
A flash of light in the courtyard down below caught his attention, where several soldiers carrying torches were marching swiftly towards his tower. Varys sighed again. Tyrion had looked uneasy, even guilty, at dinner. Why was it that the man with the most deformed body had been the closest thing to a straight and honest friend the spymaster had ever encountered? He returned to the desk, took certain papers and cast them into the fire, and sent off a final raven.
He looked cooly out the window, as though following the raven's progress despite the moonless night, hands clasped behind his back. He could hear the door opening and kept looking out. They would not catch him like a common thief, stunned with the horror of capture. He had a certain reputation as a cunning mastermind he would like to maintain until the very end. Better by far to face capture with dignity, with the unshakable sentiment of having done the right thing and failed.
The door closed. Varys turned, and was unable to hide his surprise.
Grey Worm ordered the soldiers behind him to halt. The Wolf's aged soothsayer, dressed in wolf furs and carrying a staff topped by a long-dead bird, was coming down the stairs leading to Varys' chambers.
"You. Have you seen Varys? Has he left his room?"
The sorcerer smiled, causing the soldiers behind Grey Worm to wince, holding up a jug that smelled of honey and alcohol.
"I know you can speak, sorcerer. Is he up there?"
The sorcerer shrugged.
"Who can say?"
Without looking further at him, Grey Worm led the squad upstairs. Sven Swordeater took a swig from his jug.
A short while later, the same soldiers ran down the stairs, swords drawn. Grey Worm grabbed Sven by the shoulder.
"Where is he!? What have you done with him!?"
The sorcerer looked peacefully at him before shrugging again.
"Changer took him. Who can know where men go when gods take them?"
Grey Worm signaled two guards. Each grabbed an arm and led the unresisting sorcerer away, another taking his staff and jug.
On the beach, Danaerys stood waiting. A downcast Tyrion and apprehensive-looking Jon Snow shuffled behind her, along with a contingent of Dragonstone guards. Another ran up from the castle.
"Well?"
The guard looked uneasy.
"We... we haven't found him, your grace. He's gone."
Confused mutterings sprang up behind. Danaerys looked at the guard's face.
"But if you did not find him, you found something else. What is it?"
The guard looked surprised. Grey Worm's arrival, followed by Sven and his wardens, spared him from answering.
"We did not find the traitor. But we found this!"
Two more guards stepped forward, one bearing a small rug.
"We found this on the floor. Someone spilled strong drink on it. Smelling the same as this man's jug."
Grey Worm then took the sorcerer's staff and took something from his pocket.
"And next to it, this feather."
The ancient and brittle feather Grey Worm showed clearly had not come from a living bird, and he placed it against the mummified raven's wing atop the staff. There was no doubt that they were the same.
Danaerys looked at Sven, who had been forced to his knees in the sand. Rather than terrified or repentant, he still had a peaceful expression that only fueled her anger.
"Speak. What have you done with Varys?"
Once again, the sorcerer shrugged, his tone halting, but showing no fear.
"Taken by Changer. Where Changer sent him, not know."
"Did your master put you up to this?"
Sven only laughed.
"What Jarl Strong Wolf want with geldingr? Him need strong foes for take trophies, not coward poisoner."
Grey Worm spoke up.
"I have sent for him."
Moments later, an Unsullied approached, the Wolf in tow. Some were surprised to see him still in full armor, as though he never took it off even while sleeping onboard his ship. On arriving, he yawned hugely, sniffed and scratched his beard. The parallel to a hibernating bear woken up and currently too sleepy to be enraged did not escape the crowd.
"You wanted to see me, Dragonqueen? Hope it's for something good at this hour."
He rotated his head on his neck, cracking and popping sounds echoing up and down the beach, causing whimpers among the more delicate onlookers.
"Someone has attempted to poison me."
"They did?"
The Wolf looked Danaerys up and down with bleary eyes.
"Glad to see they failed. So what's that got to do with me?"
"We cannot find the poisoner."
The Wolf's face spoke volumes as to his complete indifference to the matter.
"Poisoners rarely stay around to check that their potions took effect. It's the main attraction of poison to the cowardly, in fact. ... Still not seeing why it's worth waking me up at-"
Danaerys took the opportunity to interrupt him.
"We didn't find the poisoner, but we did find evidence that your sorcerer was with him. He hasn't denied it, but he won't tell us what he did with him."
The Wolf stared blankly at Danaerys, then his sorcerer, before setting his gaze back on her.
"I'm going to kill him."
"SVEN!"
Without warning, the Wolf lunged forward, bowling aside the luckless guards. He grabbed Sven by the neck and shook him like a ragdoll, roaring what could only be insults and abuse at him in their own language, pointing his free hand back at Danaerys before drawing it up as if threatening to slap the sorcerer's head off. Whatever reply the seer gave was evidently unsatisfactory, for the Wolf brought them nose-to-nose and yelled even louder.
Finally he dropped Sven to the ground, turned on his heel, and planted himself before Danaerys.
"Dragonqueen. My seer has killed or removed a man whose fate was yours to determine, with no right to do so, while under my banner. If you will it, he shall suffer the fate reserved for poisoners among my people, then I will hand him over to you to do as you see fit."
Tyrion looked worried. The Wolf had been openly contemptuous of his sorcerer, but to give him up without further trial seemed excessive. And what magic had the soothsayer used to utterly destroy Varys' body?
"Did he say why he killed Varys?"
The Wolf looked at Jon.
"He won't even admit to killing him. Just says he was "taken by the gods". He lacks even the courage to own up to his crime."
"So Varys is still alive?"
The Wolf shrugged.
"That... I cannot say. But in the absence of him or his corpse, the punishment can still be applied, and a warning sent to your enemies."
Danaerys looked thoughtful.
"And what fate do you reserve for poisoners?"
The Wolf smirked.
"Let's just say I hope you don't intend to work him to death in a mine or lock him up for decades so his screams lull you to sleep."
Danaerys looked at him, searching for any hint of duplicity, but his expression seemed entirely genuine. A bully, that's all he was, a bully who reveled in brutalizing the weak, even moreso with the approval of those more powerful than him. She nodded.
The Wolf returned to his victim and hauled him roughly up, one hand rummaging around in the sorcerer's collection of pouches. Finally he snatched at one, holding it aloft as he dropped the soothsayer. A greenish glow emanated from between his armored fingers.
"Warpstone! The foulest poison known to apothecaries. Not even the jungles of Lustria can produce anything to rival it. To eat it is to die in pain as innards are ravaged and consumed by fire from within. I wouldn't be surprised if it was intended to be sold to your poisoner."
The Wolf stepped back between the audience and the sorcerer and faced the sea, as if delivering an edict.
"Sven Vidkunsson, called Swordeater. You have have obstructed the justice of the Dragonqueen by killing or hiding away a fugitive poisoner, and so his crime falls on your head. For attempting to murder her by means most cowardly and unworthy of the Norsca, I sentence you to the horrors of the twisting death, and consign your soul to the Daemon Sea."
Forcing Sven's mouth open, he dropped the glowing pebble inside. Pinching the man's nose, he held firm until Sven visibly swallowed, then returned to Danaerys' side, ignoring the sorcerer collapsing to one knee and breathing shallowly.
"All yours, Dragonqueen."
Danaerys was about to speak, when the Wolf suddenly interrupted.
"Wait... his staff. Where's his staff?"
The guard still holding the staff held it up. The Wolf looked relieved.
"Put it in his hands, quick!"
The guard looked to Danaerys, but she stared at the Wolf in visible confusion.
"Don't let him die without it!"
The Wolf's tone of urgency was such that the guard hurriedly shoved the staff into Sven's hands before backing away. The sorcerer grasped at it and used it to lever himself up from the sand, leaning heavily onto it, now wheezing and coughing. A faint glow could be seen whenever he opened his mouth.
"Whatever you do to him, Dragonqueen, make sure the staff is destroyed shortly after. There's tales of wizards cheating death by hiding their souls in there, possessing the first poor bastard to come along and grab it with bare hands."
Danaerys looked coldly at the cringing figure, who clapped a hand to his throat and bit down. Flames of all colors erupted from his eyes, and glowing green saliva dribbled from his mouth. Quite a few people screamed, but Danaerys said a single word that cut through the chaos.
"Dracarys."
From behind the gathered audience erupted the monstrous form of Drogon, maw gaping wide. A wave of fire poured from his jaws, the sorcerer grabbing his staff with both hands as if to protect himself, and there was an explosion of purple and blue flames surrounding him. Drogon breathed harder still, and with a thunderclap the unnatural flames disappeared, as though devoured by the dragon's wrath.
As Drogon's fury subsided, there was nothing left of the sorcerer, only a patch of fused glass that plinked as it cooled. Danerys looked straight at it, but there was no doubt that her next words were intended for all.
"Thus do I deal with traitors."
The Wolf grinned.
"And well-dealt indeed. I only wish I could have done the same in my time."
His hand fell on her shoulder in a gesture of approval. Grey Worm started.
"Knew I backed the right queen."
Turning, he stepped on the glass, shattering it, then headed back towards the harbor. Danaerys watched him leave before turning around, daring any present to challenge her authority or demand that she justify herself.
None rose up.